Stars and Stripes…and Shamrocks?

UK government undermines rights of Northern Ireland-born Irish citizens. Irish dancing has always been the great love of my life. Even Irish botanists of great lore and learning cannot accurately identify a shamrock to this very day! The cruel reality is that the original Gaelic word seamróg, Anglicized to shamrock, means "young clover" and that is where the problem begins. The Irish government had long registered the shamrock as a national trademark, but this was successfully challenged in the German courts in the 1980s by a company which, I understand, wished to emblazon our shamrock on their fleet of refuse trucks and bulldozers. Haughey, however – fair play to him – saw to it that the case was powerfully appealed to the German Supreme Court in 1985. View Item